THEOLOGY OF A 
MODERN METHODIST 

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RAYMOND HUSE 



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OTHER BOOKS BY MR. HUSE 

LETTERS ON THE ATONEMENT 
THE SOUL OF A CHILD 



Theology of a Modern 
Methodist 

By 

RAYMOND HUSE 




THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



Copyright, 1920, by 
RAYMOND HUSE 



MAR 2j i920 



©ULA565275 



44. f . 

1 4 



i 



AFFECTIONATELY AND GRATEFULLY 
DEDICATED TO 
SAMUEL F. UPHAM 
MT TEACHER AND FRIEND 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB PAGE 

I. How the Talk Started 9 

II. The Trinity 15 

III. The Fatherhood op God 26 

IV. The Atonement 37 

V. The Holy Spirit 49 

VI. The Bible 60 

VII. Conversion 70 

VIII. Entire Sanctification 81 

IX. Prayer 90 

X. What Is the Teaching op Jesus 

About Hell? 103 

XI. What Do We Know About 

Heaven ? 116 



I. HOW THE TALK STARTED 



It was at a new-fashioned Methodist 
love feast. Our readers are doubtless 
familiar with this particular ecclesiasti- 
cal function. Not the plain, simple 
Sunday morning church, but the bril- 
liantly lighted church parlors on a Wed- 
nesday evening. Not the bread and 
water, but cake and ice cream, passed, 
not by humble, awkward stewards, but 
by prettily gowned, graceful, and smil- 
ing young women. This particular con- 
trast is mentioned not for commenda- 
tion or criticism. We confess to a de- 
cided preference for the cake and ice 
cream ourselves, but if the simple cube 
of bread, by its very simplicity, empha- 
sized the symbol of fellowship in the 
church, which was surely the meaning 
of the primitive love feast, that is cer- 
tainly in its favor. 

At one of the tables was seated a 
9 



THEOLOGY OF 

group of men, for the most part official 
members of the church, gravitating 
together as men of common interests 
will on such occasions in spite of all 
the diligence of social committees to 
keep folks circulating. It is not neces- 
sary for the purposes of this story that 
the reader be formally introduced to 
each man in the group. Two or three 
of them, however, because of their 
prominence in what is to follow, must 
be especially mentioned. 

That alert, well-groomed, virile man 
is a commercial traveler and a trustee 
in the church. He has none of the 
swagger and little of the slang of the 
old-time drummer. He wears the blue 
button of the Gideons on his lapel and 
is alive in every drop of his red, tingling 
blood. He is worth knowing. 

Sitting opposite him was a thought- 
ful-looking, youngerly man, who is 
superintendent of the mills in our city. 
His countenance bears the anxious look 
of a man who knows that 
10 



A MODERN METHODIST 



"The heights by great men reached and kept 
Were not attained by sudden flight, 
But they, while their companions slept, 
Were toiling upward in the night. 5 ' 

There were, besides a young physi- 
cian, several business men — twelve in 
all, including the district superintend- 
ent of the church and a theological pro- 
fessor. This latter was as great a con- 
trast to the old-fashioned specimens of 
the particular genus — at least as they 
are popularly pictured — as the social 
function at which they were present 
was to the old-time love feast. In his 
case, however, we cease to be neutral 
and declare the contrast to be all in his 
favor. He was not begoggled nor 
absent-minded. Every flash from his 
clear eye and every ring in his manly 
voice, without his meaning to, adver- 
tised the fact that he was interested not 
in dead things but in life! His name, 
and it is the only name we need bother 
our brains to remember, was Professor 
Paul. 

11 



THEOLOGY OF 

They were talking about old-time 
Methodist customs. "By the way/' 
said the Commercial Traveler, "what 
has become of the class meeting?" 

"I have a church in my district," re- 
plied the District Superintendent, with 
a touch of pride, "that has two — one of 
them very flourishing/' 

"Tell us about it!" said several in 
chorus. 

"There isn't much to tell. There is 
a good leader and they have what some 
magazine has called 'good times in reli- 
gion.' " 

"But, honestly, now," persisted the 
Commercial Traveler, "do they have a 
real, old-time class meeting? I mean, 
do they bring their problems of thought 
and faith and experience, and really 
talk them out and get help, or do they 
have simply a testimony meeting, dif- 
fering only from the ordinary prayer 
meeting in the fact that the selective 
draft is substituted for the volunteer 
system and the leader sprinkles in large 
12 



A MODERN METHODIST 

doses of extemporaneous encourage- 
ment?" 

The District Superintendent ac- 
knowledged the description of the serv- 
ice was fairly accurate, and the Com- 
mercial Traveler continued: "What I 
would like would be a meeting where a 
man could really bring his problems 
and get help — not only the problems of 
his heart, but what is puzzling his head 
as well — and have somebody who is 
supposed to know" — with a meaning 
glance at Professor Paul — "tell him if 
the foundation stones are really un- 
cracked!" 

And that is how it started! Before 
they left that evening they had formed 
a class meeting of the old-fashioned 
apostolic size — twelve in number — with 
Professor Paul as leader. 

"I have one request to make," said 
the Mill Superintendent, "and that is 
that we avoid speculative theology, that 
we keep always in mind that what we 
need to know is not so much about the 
13 



THEOLOGY OF 



origin of evil and the creation of the 
universe as how to live." 

"I want to put with that a request," 
retorted the Commercial Traveler, "that 
we do not steer so far away from Scylla 
as to smash into Charybdis. Some- 
times I think some of these present-day 
philosophers have gone so far in the 
glib advice, 'Don't question, just smile/ 
that they have left us nothing to smile 
over." 

"In order that we be saved from the 
sinful peril of empty extemporaneous- 
ness," said Professor Paul, "let us 
select our subject a week ahead each 
time. What shall we discuss next 
week?" 

There was a thoughtful pause for a 
moment, broken by the Commercial 
Traveler with the words: "The 
Trinity." 



14 



A MODERN METHODIST 



II. THE TRINITY 

The place of meeting was Professor 
Paul's study. It was agreed that if 
books of reference were needed, it 
would be well to have them within 
reach, although there was also the gen- 
eral understanding that the retreat to 
written opinions of others should be the 
last resort. "Why consult Augustine 
and Calvin and Wesley, when we have 
Professor Paul right here?" exclaimed 
the Commercial Traveler. "If we don't 
agree with them, it won't do any good 
to say so, and if we don't agree with 
him, we can make him uncomfortably 
aware of it." 

"Yet I shall be greatly surprised," 
remarked the District Superintendent, 
"if we do not find this library extremely 
useful. There is no use in our fussing 
to find the answers to some problems 
that are already settled. We are too 
15 



THEOLOGY OF 



old to need the discipline, and it is a 
sinful waste of time." 

"Moreover," said the Mill Superin- 
tendent, a little bashfully, "as I take 
it, a live book, if it be alive, by that very 
fact stirs to life every single brain it 
touches, as the life-giving winds of 
springtime make all the forest trees bud 
and bloom. I confess I am rather a 
dead stick myself sometimes, but when 
a good book blows its message into my 
soul I feel the sap rising all through 
me." 

"I suppose that is what a young fel- 
low was trying to say in Epworth 
League meeting" — and the good-na- 
tured smile that made the District Su- 
perintendent famous spread over his 
round face. "He said he thought that 
if more of the young people read 
Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of 
Huckleberry Finn, they would live 
more spiritual lives. I was inclined to 
be amused at first, and then as I saw 
the earnest expression on the young 
16 



A MODERN METHODIST 



man's clean-cut face, I saw it was no 
joke. Mark Twain is hardly a Sunday 
school teacher or an Epworth League 
institute director, but that young man 
evidently felt, even in his wild, whimsi- 
cal stories, the beating of his great, true, 
human heart, and was made better 
by it." 

"Amen!" said the Commercial Trav- 
eler. "Having secured this information 
as to the kind of books my studious 
colleagues propose to consult, I with- 
draw all objections." 

After a few words of reverent prayer 
the question of the evening was pre- 
sented. It was suggested that since the 
Commercial Traveler had proposed the 
subject he should open the discussion 
or ask the first question. 

The Drummer and the Unitarian 

"I suppose," he said, "I believe in 
the Trinity because I was brought up 
to believe so — and because" — and his 
voice became wistfully reverent — "I 
17 



THEOLOGY OF 

somehow can't seem to explain what 
Christ means to a man like me without 
calling him God. But I acknowledge 
I have never seen an explanation of the 
case that didn't seem as crude as a 
camp-meeting bungalow ; and when my 
neighbor, who is a Unitarian, tells me 
that his creed is more reasonable, and 
that is why it appeals to intellectual 
people, I usually try to change the sub- 
ject. In fact, I get quite a spell of 
Unitarianism myself, and don't get 
over it until I hear the kid say his 
prayers at night — and when he says: 
'This I ask for Jesus' sake,' and 'Dear 
Jesus, bless papa,' I get lumpy in my 
throat, don't care a hang about these 
intellectual people, and go downstairs 
and start the victrola playing my 
mother's favorite hymn: 'Jesus, Lover 
of My Soul.' " 

"A doctrine may appear superficially 
reasonable or unreasonable," said Pro- 
fessor Paul, "and when you really ex- 
plore its depths you find it to be quite 
18 



A MODERN METHODIST 

the reverse. You can't always judge 
the current of a river by the waters at 
the surface. If you were to mention 
the characteristics of God that make 
him worthy of our worship and our 
love, what qualities would you men- 
tion?" 

Two replies were given almost im- 
mediately by practically every man 
present: "His righteousness," "His 
love/ 5 

"I think I would like to put one 
other quality with those," the Mill Su- 
perintendent remarked, "and I don't 
know as I know just how to describe 
it or just what to call it. What I mean 
is that while we are conscious of the fact 
that our love, and our holiness — what 
we have — is given us by our Creator, 
or derived from him, he has it himself. 
I rather guess I mean God is independ- 
ent." 

Professor Paul smiled. " 'Absolute' 
is the word the philosophers and theo- 
logians use — but 'independent' is a good 
19 



THEOLOGY OF 

word. And now I think we have all 
the material we need to take up the 
question of the reasonableness of the 
doctrine of the Trinity. Start with that 
idea of the absolute, independent God, 
and now take up the quality of right- 
eousness which has been mentioned. 
How can a person be righteous if there 
is nobody to do right by? Righteous- 
ness, like all our virtues, is a social 
quality. How can an absolute, lonesome 
God have righteousness at all, if he has 
nobody to think of but himself?" 

"I suppose he may have been creat- 
ing forever," said the Mill Superin- 
tendent; "but," he added, thoughtfully, 
"he could hardly be an independent 
God if he were dependent upon his 
creatures for the development of the 
very quality that makes us worship 
at all." 

Father and Son 

The face of Professor Paul lighted 
up with pleasure. "Exactly!" he ex- 
20 



A MODERN METHODIST 



claimed, "but if there have always been 
at the very heart of the universe a 
Father and a Son — each doing right by 
the other, you start life right side up. 
You fathers know that the kid in your 
home — I borrow our brother's modern 
vocabulary — brings out everlastingly 
the highest ideals of your lif e ; while, on 
the other hand, if that quality, obedi- 
ence, which is the foundation of per- 
sonal and national character, is in the 
great soul of God himself, it is robbed 
of any flavor of despotism that would 
grate on the soul of modern democracy. 
If the eternal Son of the eternal Father 
is everlastingly saying, 'I do thy will, 
O God/ obedience becomes divine. 
And, according to this conception of 
God, you have in him a practical, ever- 
lasting, absolute righteousness — that 
makes us bow the knee." 

"We are getting almost beyond my 
depth," exclaimed the Commercial 
Traveler, "but how about love?" 

"Just the same. You can't love un- 
til 



THEOLOGY OF 

less you have somebody to love. Think 
of a lonely, absolute God, all by his 
absolute lonesomeness in an empty 
universe, with nobody to love but him- 
self. Can you get 'our Father who 
art in heaven' there? But all you need 
to have love is to have two — you know 
that. And if there have always been 
a Father and a Son, you can have love 
'from everlasting to everlasting/ Do 
you remember what Jesus said, 'O 
righteous Father, thou lovedst me be- 
fore the foundation of the world'? 
There you have it all. 

"Of course I am not saying that if 
we had no other evidence, we could rea- 
son out the necessity for the Trinity. 
I don't know as we could reason out 
the necessity for life itself — but having 
it, being able to say with Saint John, 
'Our fellowship is with the Father and 
with Jesus Christ, his Son' — we find, 
when we sound the depths, that the doc- 
trine is philosophically sound and prac- 
tically reasonable." 

22 



A MODERN METHODIST 



The Supreme Mystery 

"I think the real difficulty with me," 
mused the Mill Superintendent, "is to 
get any clear conception in my mind 
as to how we can have that eternal, 
social Trinity you have so beautifully 
described and at the same time have but 
one God." 

"Of course that has been the su- 
preme mystery of orthodoxy," was the 
thoughtful reply, "but I have an idea 
that the simple, old-fashioned state- 
ment, 'God is love,' is the best key to 
the mystery. Love is a great unifier. 
You remember our old-fashioned valen- 
tines, 'Two hearts that beat as one'? 
I have heard that Mr. and Mrs. Glad- 
stone, by years of wholesome love, so 
grew into each other's life that the little 
mistress of Hawarden Castle used to 
say, 'Wherever I am and whatever I 
do, I am thinking of William.' Now, 
if human love will so unify, would not 
divine love make really one the Holy 
23 



THEOLOGY OF 

Trinity? It was to the Trinity that 
blind George Matheson was praying 
when he said, 

" 'O Love that wilt not let me go, 
I rest my weary soul in thee ; 
I give thee back the life I owe, 
That in thine ocean depths its flow 
May richer, fuller be.' " 

There was a reverent hush for a few 
moments, and then the Commercial 
Traveler said, "I don't know as I can 
really understand it any more than I 
can see across the ocean when I am 
down at my cottage by the shore — but 
I sort of feel the bigness of it, as if the 
billows were coming in." 

"I think the doctrine of the Trinity, 
like all the doctrines of Christianity, is 
intended not so much to be explained 
as to be experienced," said Professor 
Paul. "The prayer of Jesus just be- 
fore Calvary seems to teach us that love 
leads always toward unity, and that if 
we go along its shiny way we too fit into 
24 



A MODERN METHODIST 

the Trinity. Shall I read it as a fitting 
closing of our discussion? 'Neither 
pray I for these alone, but for them 
also, which shall believe in me through 
their word, that they all may be one. 
As thou, Father, art in me, and I in 
thee, that they also may be one in us; 
that the world may believe that thou 
hast sent me. And the glory which 
thou gavest me I have given them; that 
they may be one, even as we are one: 
I in them, and thou in me, that they 
may be perfect in one/ " 



25 



THEOLOGY OF 



III. THE FATHERHOOD OF 
GOD 

In spite of the original caution of 
Professor Paul, the men were so under 
the spell of the mood of the moment 
that no subject was announced for the 
following week. 

However, although there was a driv- 
ing storm outside, the twelve chairs 
circling the open fire in the roomy study 
were filled. A subject is a good thing 
for a meeting to have. An object is a 
more sure magnet, and this they had. 

Mr. Britling's Theology 

It was the District Superintendent 
who opened the discussion. He had 
been reading the theological attempt of 
H. G. Wells, the novelist. 

"Professor Paul, what do you think 
of the book God the Invisible King?" 

A bright smile illumined the Pro- 
26 



A MODERN METHODIST 



fessor's fine face. "I think," he replied, 
"that Mr. Britling has not seen it 
through. 

"I read that book," he continued, 
"one September day as I rode on the 
steamer across Lake Winnepesaukee. 
It was a wonderful day — blue lake, 
blue mountains in the distance, blue sky 
overhead. I read the author's state- 
ment that the Veiled Being of nature 
has no connection with God, the Invisi- 
ble King in our souls, and I said it is 
like saying that my mother's voice be- 
longs to a different person from my 
mother's face. Mr. Wells is rather 
proud of the fact that he has quarreled 
with the theologians, but he has also 
quarreled with the poets, and that is too 
much like quarreling with God. Of 
course I cannot demonstrate in a cool, 
mathematical sense that the God of the 
hills and the God of the stars and the 
God of my soul are one — any more 
than I can that my mother's voice and 
my mother's face belong together. In 
27 



THEOLOGY OF 

a sense, in both cases it is by faith we 
receive the unity, but to doubt it is the 
depth of folly." 

"But all days are not like that Sep- 
tember one on the lake," said the Com- 
mercial Traveler. "Take this stormy 
night, for instance. There are many 
cruel, grim things in nature. They 
don't seem much like the 'sweet peace, 
the gift of God's love/ we are sup- 
posed to have in our souls when we sing 
in prayer meeting." 

The Professor's eyes twinkled. "I 
had some experiences with my mother, 
as a child, that didn't seem just like her 
lullaby songs at night. I didn't enjoy 
them, but there is an old Book which 
says 'that no chastening for the present 
seemeth joyous, but grievous, but after- 
ward it worketh the peaceable fruit of 
righteousness to them that are exercised 
thereby.' Now, before you sidetrack 
me from the thing I want to say by 
asking all about the suffering of the 
world I want to say, frankly, that I do 
28 



A MODERN METHODIST 

not see in nature alone a full revelation 
of the love of God — but we are not and 
never have been left with nature alone. 
We have always had somebody who 
knows to tell us about our Father-God. 
And when we know him we can trust 
him, even when 'dark is his path on the 
wings of the storm/ 

"But to-night I am a little nervous 
of being interrupted until I finish my 
story. That day I was on my way to 
speak words of Christian comfort at the 
funeral of a beautiful young girl who 
had been suddenly called out of this 
life. And while thinking about it all 
I read what Mr. Wells had to say about 
immortality, that individual immortal- 
ity, being a selfish thing, has no special 
part in real religion. I got his concep- 
tion of God as a military King, mar- 
shaling his forces in age-long battle for 
the good of the race, in which soldiers 
fling away their lives forever for the 
good of the age to be ! Then I thought 
of what Jesus taught about God being 
29 



THEOLOGY OF 

a Father, watching every sparrow's fall 
and loving everlastingly every wistful 
soul — and I must say I preferred the 
teaching of Jesus. And when I saw the 
stricken mother, triumphant and strong 
in the faith in the Father and final 
home, I said what I have said to you 
now: 'Mr. Britling has not seen it 
through.' One would think in these 
democratic days of toppling thrones he 
would see that the very title, 'The In- 
visible King,' is antiquated, and that 
each day the race marches away from 
the kings toward democracy and peace 
we are coming nearer to the teaching 
of Jesus that God is the everlasting 
Father." 

The Fatherly and Motherly 
Heart oe God 

"Then you believe in the universal 
Fatherhood of God?" asked the Mill 
Superintendent. 

"The debate about the universal 
Fatherhood of God is largely a debate 
30 



A MODERN METHODIST 

of words," replied the Professor. 
"Generally speaking, these people are 
not talking about the same thing at all 
when they get so excited with each 
other. Of course, when we are talking 
about God we need to ever pray: 

" 'A veil twixt thee and me, dread Lord, 
A veil twixt thee and me, 
Lest we should hear too clear, too clear, 
And into blindness see. 5 

"We know very little about God. 
We are like children, playing by the 
ocean — but a man could not paint a 
beautiful picture unless he had the soul 
of the artist and a man could not write 
a beautiful song unless he had music 
in him — and God could not make 
mothers' hearts and fathers' hearts un- 
less he were full of fatherliness and 
motherliness himself! That is why I 
feel bold to pray with Whittier, 'O God 
and Father of mankind,' and to pray as 
Jesus taught us, not, 'O King Invisible,' 
but 'Our Father who art in heaven/ " 
31 



THEOLOGY OF 

"But does that not conflict a little 
with the idea of God as the stern 
Judge? Isn't that a little too soft for 
this evil generation?" queried the Mill 
Superintendent. 

The Professor became really excited. 
His eyes flashed as he said: "I said God 
was a Father. I did not say he was a 
Grandfather." Then the quiet smile 
came again and he said: "You know I 
am a grandfather myself and I enjoy 
my grandchildren. I love them and 
cuddle them and coddle them, but the 
responsibility of bringing them up is 
not mine. I can overlook their little 
faults and think only of having a happy 
time with them — but their father can't 
and their mother doesn't. Their love 
for the children must be thoroughly 
saturated with moral responsibility, and 
sometimes that makes it pretty stern 
stuff. Moreover, God is everybody's 
Father. I have known some parents, 
if their own children did wrong — well, 
take an incident I know where a mother 
32 



A MODERN METHODIST 

had a son who deliberately ruined a 
white-souled girl, and that excused and 
coddled the son and blamed the girl. It 
was because, she would say, of her 
mother heart's pleading for her boy. 
Personally, I am inclined to think that 
there was more selfishness than real 
mother love in it, if it were properly 
analyzed, and God's holy Fatherhood 
is not thus adulterated — but be that as 
it may, God is just as much the Father 
of the girl as of the boy. He is every- 
body's Father. You will find no soft 
excusing there. He can't be that kind 
and be fair to all his children. No, I 
think what this evil generation you talk 
about needs is a Father like God. Do 
you remember Faber's hymn? — 

" 'AH fathers learn their craft from thee, 
All loves are shadows cast 
From the beautiful eternal hills 
Of thine unbeginning past.' 

"That's my creed," and the Profes- 
sor beamed on his listening guests. 
33 



THEOLOGY OF 



God's Attitude Toward All Folks 

"Then you do not accept the doctrine 
that the Fatherhood of God is only for 
the saints who have been adopted into 
his family?" said the District Superin- 
tendent. 

"Of course," was the answer, "in all 
these things we are talking in meta- 
phors. When I talk of the universal 
Fatherhood of God I mean his spiritual 
attitude toward folks. In just what 
sense we are his offspring I don't 
know, and it doesn't matter especially. 
Even in our human relationships it is 
only as they are spiritualized that they 
are vital. Some people are not truly 
fathers and mothers to their own off- 
spring. Some adopted parents know 
some of the deepest depths of real 
fatherhood and motherhood. What I 
mean about God is that his spiritual 
attitude toward folks i's that of a 
Father. 

"As to limiting that attitude to a 
34 



A MODERN METHODIST 

particular class, building a high stone 
wall around it, and fencing it in for the 
saints — our human fatherhood and 
motherhood rebukes that notion. If 
your mother was like mine, because she 
had the mother heart she was only 
limited by her humanity from mother- 
ing every stray child on earth. God is 
that kind and God has no limits ! 

"Of course that does not mean that 
we are all children of God unless we 
choose to be. A body doesn't need to 
be a child of his earthly parents, in a 
real spiritual sense, unless he chooses to 
be. When God made us like himself 
he didn't leave us to be anything auto- 
matically. I shall never forget calling 
on a poor heart-broken mother at a 
county farm, whose prosperous son 
had left her there to pine her life away. 
He was her natural offspring, but he 
wasn't in a real spiritual sense her son. 
We can be that way with God. That's 
why I said at the beginning this discus- 
sion of the universal Fatherhood of 
35 



THEOLOGY OF 

God is largely a debate of words. When 
a certain great evangelist says he is 
opposed to it he is protesting against 
a shirking of moral responsibility that 
comes from saying, 'God's my Father 
and I am his child, and I am all right, 
no matter how I behave.' In his pro- 
test he is exactly right. No man can 
rightly claim to be the son of God un- 
less he has the filial spirit and performs 
the duties and meets the obligations of 
sonship. But what I am insisting on 
in all our talk is that we must think of 
God and all the doctrines of God in 
terms of Fatherhood. That is the teach- 
ing of Jesus, and is as far above the 
antiquated conception of a military 
monarch Mr. Wells attempts to resur- 
rect as the heavens are high above the 
earth. 

"And now let me suggest — perhaps 
it is the pedagogue in me that makes me 
— that we do the logical thing and dis- 
cuss next week 'The Atonement.' " 



36 



A MODERN METHODIST 



IV. THE ATONEMENT 

"I may as well state at the start," 
said the Mill Superintendent, after the 
brief and reverent devotional service, 
"my difficulty with the doctrine of the 
Atonement as I hear it preached and 
taught. It doesn't 'arrive/ I can see 
how, if God is absolutely just, these 
cheap, easy ideas of simply 'forgive and 
forget 9 faint away of their own super- 
ficiality. Justice demands that the 
penalty follow the sin. What I cannot 
see is how to have Christ or anybody 
else bear the penalty for my sin squares 
my account with justice. I have read 
the various attempts to explain it, to 
say that divine government can be up- 
held that way, and all that sort of thing, 
but it seems to me a strange and unfair 
government that can be upheld by pun- 
ishing the innocent party." 

87 



THEOLOGY OF 

"Suppose/' replied the Professor, 
"that we start where we left off last 
week. The thing I tried to insist on 
then was that we think of God in terms 
of Fatherhood — moral, responsible 
Fatherhood. Now, you are a father 
yourself. Suppose your child does 
wrong, what are you thinking about in 
your dealings with him — satisfying 
absolute justice?" 

"No," was the thoughtful reply. "I 
think my chief motive is the benefit of 
the child." 

"And should God do less? Let us not 
forget that, first of all, he is and always 
has been a Father. Now, let us take a 
concrete case. Suppose your little lad 
has committed some deliberate piece of 
naughtiness and you determine that he 
needs to be punished; suppose he says 
what children — and older folks too, for 
that matter — say in such emergencies, 
'I won't do it again'; and suppose you 
could read his heart and see there as 
complete a repentance and moral trans- 
38 



A MODERN METHODIST 



formation as if the punishment were 
inflicted — what would you do about it?" 

"I think I would let the account with 
absolute justice go," and the Mill Su- 
perintendent smiled tenderly, "and hold 
a love feast." 

The Purpose or Calvary 

"Exactly — and that is what God 
does. The purpose of Calvary is not 
to balance the accounts with justice, 
but to secure the moral transformation 
of us wayward children of the everlast- 
ing Father. I am speaking all the time 
in an everyday, practical fashion, you 
understand, having never peeped at the 
books of the Infinite." 

"Then the question simmers down to 
this," queried the Commercial Traveler, 
"how does the sacrifice of Christ make 
over folks?" 

"Yes, and that is a long story," re- 
plied Professor Paul, "but a fairly 
simple one. I think it starts with the 
question a little girl asked her father 
39 



THEOLOGY OF 

one time after a rather painful inter- 
view, € O y papa, what makes me be so 
naughty when I want to be so good?' 
The fact that the greatest battle we all 
have to fight in securing moral charac- 
ter and peace is with ourselves is proof 
that whatever we may think about the 
old-fashioned notion of original sin 
something ails us." 

"Yes," interrupted the Commercial 
Traveler, "it is certainly the nature of 
most of us to be selfish. I have thought 
that it was 'the pure streak of cussed- 
ness' that every man possesses." 

The Chastenings or Providence 

"The second thing I want to speak 
about," continued Professor Paul, "is 
so old-fashioned that I am not sure 
how such a company of distinctly mod- 
ern men as you will receive it. It goes 
back to that verse I quoted to you the 
other night about chastening not seem- 
ing pleasant, but grievous, but after- 
ward working the peaceable fruit of 
40 



A MODERN METHODIST 



righteousness to those that are exercised 
thereby. We have been saying so much 
of late about punishment embittering 
rather than benefiting children on the 
one hand and criminals on the other, 
that, as I say, I fear what I say will not 
seem in harmony with the spirit of the 
age. 

"Well," said the District Superin- 
tendent, "I suppose it is because so 
much of our punishment has been a 
bungling botch, prompted by the mood 
of the moment. I am sure, when I was 
a little rebel at home, my mother's 
spankings had a distinct moral benefit 
that has helped me ever since. I learned 
the majesty of obedience and really 
hated the sin that made me suffer." 

"It's quite a leap from the District 
Superintendent's childhood to the na- 
tions of the world," remarked the Mill 
Superintendent, "but I wonder if as 
we study history we do not find the 
chastenings of Providence have saved 
many a nation from moral rottenness. 
41 



THEOLOGY OF 



It seems to me the history of Israel 
especially is full of just such chapters." 

"Now, then," said Professor Paul, 
"if the human family is full of selfish- 
ness, don't you see how a race-wide 
chastening might be needed? You will 
remember all the time that we are not 
trying to square accounts with justice. 
We are thinking of a Father seeking 
the moral transformation of his way- 
ward children. Of course, if we were 
speaking of just balancing up with 
justice, we should have to take up the 
question as to why we should be chas- 
tened for selfishness in which we were 
born and which was born in us, but you 
see we might as well ask why Abraham 
Lincoln should have to work his way 
by sweaty toil from the log cabin to the 
White House. Why did he have to be 
born in a log cabin, anyway? Some 
things will have to be balanced up with 
immortal individuals in the next life, 
or what is eternity for? We may as 
well confess all the way along there are 
42 



A MODERN METHODIST 

a good many things we do not know. 
That was where the old-fashioned theo- 
logians got into trouble — they were 
very modest about acknowledging their 
ignorance. They thought they had got 
to pretend to understand everything. 

One Suffering for Another 

"The third thing I want to ask you 
to remember is that history is full of 
vicarious suffering — the innocent suf- 
fering for the guilty and glad to do it 
to make the world better. Do you re- 
member these lines, 

" 6 A picket frozen on duty, 

A mother starving for her brood, 
Socrates drinking the hemlock, 

Jesus on the rood, 
And millions who, unnoticed, 

The steep hard path have trod — 
Some call it consecration, 

Others call it God.' 

"Now, I want you to keep in mind 
the Fatherhood of God. If you are a 
43 



THEOLOGY OF 

father — and most of you are — if there 
is any of the struggle, any of the pain 
and heartache that comes in the way 
of life that you can take yourself in- 
stead of your children having to endure, 
you will do it." 

"Certainly," interrupted the Mill Su- 
perintendent. "Isn't that why we 
work night and day, so that they can 
have schooling and comforts and get 
along easier than we did?" 

"In a nutshell," said Professor Paul, 
"the Atonement is our Father God do- 
ing the same thing for his children — 
but before I summarize it and answer 
the question 'How?' that is already 
forming on your lips, I want to ask 
you to remember one other big truth, 
and that is the benefit that comes to our 
lives from fellowship with others. You 
remember James A. Garfield said his 
idea of a college education was to sit on 
a log with Mark Hopkins. And while 
you toil that your children may be 
saved the burden and the bruises of 
44 



A MODERN METHODIST 



the long road, you hope that by fellow- 
ship with you they may secure some of 
the spiritual benefits that came to you 
from the burdens and the bruises. 

"Now, put all we have said together. 
First, human selfishness making the 
battle for righteousness and peace a 
losing one; second, only the chastening 
of the Lord its cure; third, vicarious 
suffering one of the great facts of life 
and the Father heart of God prompt- 
ing him to take as much of the pain into 
his own life as possible to save his chil- 
dren; fourth, the power of fellowship. 
This is, of course, but the background 
of the cross. The rest can be said very 
briefly, although every sentence is fate- 
ful. Jesus Christ is born into the hu- 
man race, and because of his human 
heritage and his divine nature is in his 
own life aware of the downpull of the 
race's selfishness and sin. He knows it 
all from experience. In the same spirit 
of all great vicarious suffering he bows 
to the divine chastening. Human na- 
45 



THEOLOGY OF 



ture in him is purged. By fellowship 
with him the lesson of it all is ours, and 
if any man be in Christ, he is a new 
creature." 

"It wasn't just fair, was it, for Christ 
to suffer for us?" said the Mill Super- 
intendent. 

"No — but he chose to, as you fathers 
do for your children — and remembering 
our discussion of the Trinity, you will 
see the suffering and the cross were in 
the heart of the Father too — and the 
Holy Spirit also." 

"That is what I have been wondering 
about," questioned the Commercial 
Traveler. "We started in talking about 
a Trinity, and so far we seem to speak 
merely of two. What of the Holy 
Spirit?" 

"Next week," replied Professor 
Paul, "we will speak of the Holy 
Spirit." 

"In the meantime," said the Mill 
Superintendent, "what is the account 
of absolute justice for my sins?" 
46 



A MODERN METHODIST 



Where Forgiveness Comes In 

"I reckon it has never been paid," 
said the Professor. "That is where 
forgiveness comes in. Of course I want 
to say to you men that I do not pretend 
we have by infinite leagues sounded the 
depths of the mystery of the Atone- 
ment. We have simply considered its 
practical bearing on life. Let me read 
you what the great apostle, my name- 
sake, says on the same subject: 

" 'For the love of Christ constraineth 
us; because we thus judge, that if one 
died for all, then were all dead: and 
that he died for all, that they which 
live should not henceforth live unto 
themselves, but unto him which died for 
them, and rose again. Wherefore 
henceforth know we no man after the 
flesh: . . . yet now henceforth know 
we him no more. 

" 'Therefore if any man be in Christ, 
47 



THEOLOGY OF 

he is a new creature: old things are 
passed away; behold, all things are be- 
come new. And all things are of God, 
who hath reconciled us to himself by 
Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the 
ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that 
God was in Christ, reconciling the 
world unto himself, not imputing their 
trespasses unto them; and hath com- 
mitted unto us the word of reconcilia- 
tion. Now then we are ambassadors 
for Christ, as though God did beseech 
you by us: we pray you in Christ's 
stead, be ye reconciled to God. For 
he hath made him to be sin for us, who 
knew no sin; that we might be made 
the righteousness of God in him/ " 



48 



A MODERN METHODIST 



V, THE HOLY SPIRIT 

At the fourth meeting of the class 
the pastor of the church was present, 
"He has so many pious gatherings to 
attend I didn't think he ought to come. 
I think he really needs something more 
frivolous, but I couldn't keep him away 
when I told him what we were doing," 
said the Commercial Traveler, as he 
piloted him in. 

"He is surely welcome," and Pro- 
fessor Paul extended his hand of greet- 
ing. "I fear, however, for a preacher 
to attend a class like this on Monday 
evenings will be a good deal like the old 
stagecoach driver who said he took his 
vacation 'riding around with the other 
fellow. 5 " 

"That is not so bad an idea of a vaca- 
tion as it at first might seem," exclaimed 
the Pastor. "Seeing your own work go 
on without any responsibility for it." 

"Well, you will see this class go on, 
49 



THEOLOGY OF 

all right, and you surely will not have 
to drive," ventured the Mill Superin- 
tendent. 

"To introduce the subject of the eve- 
ning" — and Professor Paul's expres- 
sive face became rapt and reverent — "I 
wish to read, as our prayer, President 
Warren's matchless hymn: 

U€ t worship thee, O Holy Ghost, 
I love to worship thee. 
My risen Lord for aye were lost 
But for thy company. 

a 'I worship thee, O Holy Ghost, 
I love to worship thee. 
I grieved thee long, alas, thou knowest 
It grieves me bitterly. 

u 4 I worship thee, O Holy Ghost, 
I love to worship thee. 
Thy patient love at such a cost, 
At last it conquered me. 

" 'I worship thee, O Holy Ghost, 
I love to worship thee. 
With thee each day is Pentecost, 
Each night Nativity.' 

"I think I want to refer again, at the 
50 



A MODERN METHODIST 

start, to our friend Mr. Wells, whose 
book we discussed the other night. He 
is particularly savage about the doc- 
trine of the Trinity and insists that it 
was forced upon the church by a council 
of ecclesiastical politicians, and that not 
until centuries after the establishment 
of the Christian Church. As a matter 
of fact, that is the way with all the doc- 
trines of God — they are experienced 
first and stated afterward. Those old 
creeds, stilted and pedantic as they 
sound, were an honest attempt to ac- 
count for the facts of Christian experi- 
ence and history. A council can have 
no permanent power unless it expresses 
the sentiments of the people. The doc- 
trine of the Holy Spirit is the last one 
a body would conjure up itself — least 
of all a group of ecclesiastical politi- 
cians. But they had some experiences 
with Pentecost to interpret." 

Knowledge About the Holy Spirit 

"My experience with people who 
51 



THEOLOGY OF 



talk much about the Holy Spirit has 
not been very pleasant/' said the Mill 
Superintendent. "I remember an in- 
stitution in New England that is called 
'The Holy Ghost and Us. 5 That is typi- 
cal of the crudeness I have encountered. 
From these people I early gained the 
impression that the presence of the Holy 
Spirit is manifested by a nervous hys- 
teria that keeps folks from being whole- 
some and normal. That is why I was 
particularly grateful for the reverent 
prayer of President Warren." 

"Why don't we know more about the 
Holy Spirit?" asked the Commercial 
Traveler. "I confess I have a fairly 
clear picture of the Father and the 
Christ, but when it comes to the third 
Person of the Trinity I am in a fog 
bank. And most preachers I hear talk 
make the fog thicker. I heard one this 
summer waxing eloquent over the Holy 
Spirit, but he used the pronoun 'it' and 
seemed to be talking about some sort 
of spiritual electricity." 

52 



A MODERN METHODIST 

"I think it was Mr. Moody," replied 
the Professor, "who, with that native 
sense and spiritual intuition which 
made him sometimes great even as a 
theologian, spoke of the self-oblitera- 
tion of the Holy Spirit. You remem- 
ber that Jesus said of him that he 
should not speak of himself, but that 
the whole mission of his life should be 
to glorify the Christ. It is not, there- 
fore, surprising that we should not 
know much about him. You should 
not, therefore, worry about your ignor- 
ance regarding the Holy Spirit. It is 
evidently part of the plan. I have 
never been very enthusiastic over these 
learned divisions of divine history into 
dispensations, but I do think God re- 
veals himself according to our capacity 
to receive. To an age that insisted 
on thinking in terms of monarchies and 
kingdoms, he was revealed as the King 
of Glory. To an age that needed a 
lawgiver he was the great Judge. 
When the world could stand it we were 
53 



THEOLOGY OF 



told of the Father and the Son. That 
is about all we can comprehend now. I 
remember hearing Sam Hadley, of 
Water Street, say once: 'What do we 
tell these poor human wrecks who want 
help? Do we tell them about God? 
Not much; that frightens them. Do 
we tell them about the Holy Ghost? 
No; a man has to be pretty well along 
before he can understand about a Ghost. 
We tell them about Jesus. Jesus was 
a man, and they can understand him.' 
The most of us are in about the same 
predicament, I think, so we are not told 
much yet about the Holy Spirit. Our 
part is simply to obey him as he tells us 
of the Christ." 

Motherhood and the Trinity 

"I want to ask a question," said the 
Mill Superintendent, "and I don't 
know as it is at all pertinent, and it may 
be it is hardly reverent. Is there any- 
thing that corresponds to motherhood 
in the being of God?" 

54 



A MODERN METHODIST 

"Of course/' replied Professor Paul, 
"that raises the question whether the 
difference between fatherhood and 
motherhood is merely a difference of 
physical sex. I think we want to keep 
ever in mind what those fine old theo- 
logical blacksmiths were after when 
they said God was without body or 
parts. The shame of Mormonism is 
not so much that they have given us a 
polygamous man as that they have 
asked us to worship a polygamous God 
— and have deified characteristics that 
are material and physical. But I think 
most of us feel that there is a sub- 
tle spiritual distinction, like different 
notes of music, between holy father- 
hood and holy motherhood. I presume 
the exaltation of the Virgin Mary grew 
partly from a misunderstanding of the 
character of God, a forgetting of his 
Fatherhood and the tender pity of the 
Christ, but it may be it had its roots 
also in a heart hunger for motherhood 
in God. 

55 



THEOLOGY OF 

"Now, what I have to say next, I say 
with quite a little chastened agnosticism 
and yet also much eager confidence — I 
have thought the Holy Spirit is the 
mother-element of the Deity. I ac- 
knowledge there is more reverent im- 
agination in this than in anything I 
have told you before. This is not clearly 
stated to us like the Fatherhood of God 
or the Saviourhood of Jesus, but there 
is a certain poetic appropriateness to 
that very lack, for real motherhood is 
always modest, always getting out of 
sight itself and seeking to glorify the 
Father and the Son. 

"And if you have in mind this theory 
— if you choose to call it such — you can 
see a likeness in what we may call the 
work of the Holy Spirit and the work 
of the true mother. You remember that 
old account of the beginning of life — 
that the Spirit of God brooded on the 
face of the water. And you know when 
you stop to think of it that we all be- 
lieve that all life, material life, intel- 
56 



A MODERN METHODIST 

lectual life, spiritual life, is 'born of the 
Spirit of God' — that the very life of the 
Spirit Divine goes into it, and that is 
what makes all life so mysterious, sa 
wonderful, and so glorious. You re- 
call also that in our Christian life we 
are 'led by the Spirit,' chastened by the 
Spirit, and taught by the Spirit. And 
if by this conception we could dispossess 
that notion 'filled with the Spirit' of 
its meaningless neutrality, not to say 
from materialism, degenerating some- 
times, as our brother has said, into a 
crude foolishness, and make it like the 
experience of William McKinley when 
he sent the immortal telegram, 'Tell 
mother I'll be there,' I think it would 
be eminently worth while." 

"I remember that the Christian 
Science parody on the Lord's Prayer 
says Our Father — Mother — God, but 
I always supposed that referred to 
Mother Eddy," remarked the Commer- 
cial Traveler. 

"I think that is hardly fair to them 
57 



THEOLOGY OF 



to so interpret it. I think they too are 
heart-hungry for motherhood in God/' 
was the Professor's reply. 

"In that intensely personal book by 
Professor Olin A. Curtis on The Chris- 
tian Faith," suggested the Pastor, "I 
remember in his discussion of the Holy 
Spirit he says that he despairs of mak- 
ing a generation that utterly refuses to 
accept the Pauline conception of a home 
understand what he conceived to be the 
function of the Holy Spirit, or some- 
thing like that. What do you think he 
means?" 

"I suppose," and Professor Paul 
smiled, "that he meant a generation of 
militant suffragettes could not compre- 
hend that the self-obliteration of the 
Holy Spirit had any connection with 
divine motherhood; and perhaps we 
shall have to say — and I trust I am 
Teverent — that the Holy Spirit is an 
old-fashioned Mother. May I just call 
your attention to the utter unselfishness 
of the Trinity? Each is everlastingly 
58 



A MODERN METHODIST 

living for the others — and glorifying 
the others." 

"I believe," remarked the Mill Su- 
perintendent, "I could worship a God 
like that more honestly than I could 
one who is always advertising his own 
glory," 

Professor Paul's expressive face 
shone like that of Moses of old, and he 
said: "Once I heard John B. Gough 
speak on motherhood, and he said some- 
thing like this: 'Young man, you say 
you will go through fire and water for 
your mother. She doesn't want you to 
do that. She wants you to come home 
a little earlier evenings.' So I rather 
guess that our discussion this evening 
should have a similar practical conclu- 
sion. Whatever may be the mystery 
of the Spirit's nature, whether our in- 
terpretation is correct or not, I am sure 
we are doing the will of the Spirit when 
we live the Christian life. That is the 
passion of the mother heart of God." 



59 



THEOLOGY OF 



VI. THE BIBLE 

"Next week let us take up the sub- 
ject of Higher Criticism." It was the 
Pastor who made the suggestion. 

"Not on your life," retorted the Com- 
mercial Traveler. "This is a class meet- 
ing. It is not a theological cemetery." 

"I think perhaps it would be more 
appropriate and would satisfy the de- 
sire of our brother, the Pastor, if we 
should consider for a little while the 
Bible next week," said Professor Paul. 
The Pastor, it may be remarked, was a 
little proud — in a perfectly ministerial, 
righteous sense — of being a "conserva- 
tive" in matters of current Bible discus- 
sion and was a little suspicious of what 
he considered certain liberal tendencies 
of the good Professor. He had, per- 
haps, a hope, inherited from his hunts- 
men ancestors, of being able to ensnare 
60 



A MODERN METHODIST 

him. The laymen, who were bent on 
avoiding just such a preachers' -meeting 
performance and making their informal 
gatherings together practically helpful, 
were, therefore, a little anxious as they 
gathered around the study fire the next 
Monday evening. 

"All Scripture Is Given by 
Inspiration" 

"I propose as the starting point for 
the evening this text," said the Pastor. 
"All scripture is given by inspiration 
of God, and is profitable for doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruc- 
tion in righteousness: that the man of 
God may be perfect, thoroughly fur- 
nished unto all good works." 

"That's a good place to start," re- 
marked the Professor, with a twinkle 
in his eye. "Where do you want to go?" 

"Z don't want to go anywhere," said 
the Pastor. "I am satisfied to settle 
every question the critics may bring up 
by that text." 

61 



THEOLOGY OF 

"That is a good text/' replied the 
Professor. "I think it is a fine text for 
our evening's sermon, but using it as 
a proof that the Bible is inspired is like 
being sure a man is honest because he 
says so himself. I think most of us 
would want some other evidence. That 
particular statement may not be abso- 
lutely true, and so for purposes of argu- 
ment let us say it is surely possible that 
this particular text is not inspired, and 
then everything is unsettled all over 
again. I guess most of the fakers and 
charlatans of the ages have made just 
as positive statements regarding their 
own inspiration and been eager to settle 
things by that statement. 

"Moreover, that word 'scripture,' if 
I remember correctly, has not in the 
original the same meaning as it has with 
us. It simply means 'writing,' that 
which is written. We would hardly 
want to say that all writings are given 
by inspiration of God, and are, there- 
fore, ready for the more accurate trans- 
62 



A MODERN METHODIST 

lation of the Revised Version, 'Every 
scripture [or writing] inspired of God 
is also profitable for teaching, for re- 
proof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness : that the man of God may 
be complete, furnished completely unto 
every good work,' which is a test of the 
inspiration of the Scripture that is scien- 
tific and pragmatic and wholesome." 

The Doctor's Question 

For the first time the Physician, who 
was always a thoughtful listener, asked 
a question. "You mean you are willing 
to rest your argument for the inspira- 
tion of the Scriptures on what they do 
for folks, in making them righteous and 
furnishing them for good works?" 

"Yes — only I hardly call it an argu- 
ment, because I don't need one. I am 
willing to risk the immortality of the 
precious old Book on its fruits." 

"Do you mean," asked the Pastor, 
"that you accept the statement that we 
are to read the Bible just as we would 
63 ' 



THEOLOGY OF 

any other book and judge it the same 

way?" 

"If Phillips Brooks were alive and 
were to come to town to speak, it would 
be impossible for me to go to hear him 
as I would any other man. The influ- 
ence of his holy ministry has so filled 
the land that it would, of necessity, 
create in me a different mood as I went 
to hear him. But I would judge his 
words by what they accomplished and 
not by what he said about himself — or 
any theory his fellow churchmen might 
manufacture about his peculiar episco- 
pal sanctity. I think you see the com- 
parison," said the Professor. 

"What would you think of the state- 
ment," persisted the Pastor, "made by 
a young man to an ordaining council, 
*I know the Bible is true simply be- 
cause it finds me 5 ?" 

"I would say," and the Professor 
smiled indulgently, "let him alone; he 
will grow. It is characteristic of the 
bumptiousness of youth to speak in the 
64 



A MODERN METHODIST 

first person singular. Some day he will 
see that the Bible has done some more 
remarkable things than finding him — 
his father and mother, the holy apostles, 
prophets and martyrs and the church 
of all ages will loom up as at least 
equally important." 

"But," the Physician spoke again, "if 
the test of the inspiration of writings 
is what they accomplish for human bet- 
terment, why single out the Bible as a 
particular sacred book? There are cer- 
tainly other books that may make the 
same claim of inspiration?" 

"Certainly," was the reply, "and I 
should hate to think that the literary 
ability of the Spirit Divine was ex- 
hausted in one volume. To say nothing 
of the sacred books of various religions, 
which certainly show signs and bear 
fruits to a certain degree of inspiration, 
some modern writers and prophets be- 
long in the same class. Indeed, I 
modestly think I have felt a touch or 
two of inspiration myself. The peculiar 
65 



THEOLOGY OF 

thing about the Bible is not so much the 
unique fullness of inspiration of its 
writers — although I think none of us 
who are thoughtful will deny that — as 
the peculiar purpose of it. The Bible 
writers occupy the same place in reli- 
gious literature that the discoverers 
occupy in science and history. Men 
may travel as bravely as old Columbus, 
but they can never be the discoverer of 
America! He who should advertise to 
do that would but expose his own fool- 
ishness ! 

"The Bible writers, by the aid of the 
Spirit, discovered for the world the 
revelation of the heart of God, his sal- 
vation and his kingdom, 'which things 
the angels desire to look into.' Herein 
lies the glory of the Book," and the Pro- 
fessor's voice rang out in gladness. 
"Here we have a body of literature — 
literature of all kinds. We have his- 
tory, prophecy, proverb, poetry, epistle, 
biography, and dreams. And we some- 
times are favored with long discourses 
66 



A MODERN METHODIST 

as to which is which. This literature 
was written by different human authors, 
men of all ages, who were typical men 
of their ages, and yet it somehow fits 
together like the different parts of a 
picture puzzle and unitedly shows us 
the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
Christ, That is what makes it so won- 
derful, and that is what makes it so 
divine. 

"All parts are not of equal impor- 
tance. Some, like the little gray card- 
boards of the puzzle, simply help to 
make the background of the face — but 
the centuries come and the centuries go, 
and still the heart of the church does 
not see a single part that needs to be 
left out when properly understood in 
connection with the whole — and while 
many fine things, dripping with divine 
inspiration, have been written, no man 
has come — nor woman either — who has 
the right to belong to the immortal com- 
pany of the discoverers. The age of 
discovery has passed. The great conti- 
67 



THEOLOGY OF 



nent has been found. Our work is to 
explore and to cultivate!" 

An Infallible Directory of Eter- 
nal Life 

"In what sense is the Bible, then, in- 
fallible?" asked the Mill Superintend- 
ent. 

"I think there has never been a better 
answer to that question than the answer 
of Joseph Cooke — 'It is the infallible 
directory to eternal life.' What we 
need to have in life is not an iron- 
clad rule, but a fellowship with Him who 
said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the 
life.' This is what the Bible unerringly 
reveals. But here also in steering away 
from Scylla we may capsize on Cha- 
rybdis unless we watch out. A fellow- 
ship with Christ is not merely a mys- 
tical, emotional thing. How can two 
walk together unless they agree? There 
must be the deliberate acceptance of his 
teaching — and the teaching of those who 
were under the spell of his personality 
68 



A MODERN METHODIST 

and were helped by the Spirit to inter- 
pret his teaching and apply it to life. 
On matters of the Christian revelation 
of life and duty and destiny I conceive 
the teachings of the Scripture, when 
properly understood, to be an infallible 
authority— if you like that old-fashioned 
word. Here, again, you need to remem- 
ber my comparison to the picture puzzle 
and take things in their connection, and 
not take a piece of card, that is simply 
intended as part of the background, for 
the picture of the face— like some of the 
chapters in the Old Testament — as if 
it were part of the face itself." 

"How can we always know?" asked 
the Physician. 

" 'If any man will do his will, he shall 
know of the doctrine/ was the reverent 
answer. " 'And he, the Spirit of truth* 
will guide you into all truth.' " 



69 



THEOLOGY OF 



VII. CONVERSION 

The coming in of the Pastor, al- 
though it threatened at first to bring 
too much of the spirit of controversy 
into the peaceful, eager group of truth- 
seekers, proved to be a source of real 
spiritual blessing. He was an earnest 
"minister of Jesus Christ," whose very 
presence was a moral tonic. His people 
might not always agree with his 
opinions— these are days when it is no 
crime to differ from a minister — but 
they were always glad to have him 
around. Moreover, there was needed 
some one with the pastoral attitude to 
give the finest tone to the class. Even 
district superintendents and theological 
professors need a pastor around to shep- 
herd their souls. 

It was in response to the suggestion 
of the Pastor that the next meeting was 
devoted to the subject of "Conversion," 
70 



A MODERN METHODIST 

and began with a frank relation of 
Christian experience that made it re- 
semble much the old-time class meeting. 

How They Came 

The Mill Superintendent spoke first 
of the happy day when the burden of 
his soul rolled away. It was a typical 
old-fashioned Methodist prayer-meet- 
ing testimony of spiritual crisis, told 
with a quiet earnestness that was com- 
pelling, and when he finished there was 
an eloquent silence more expressive than 
any uttered "Amen." 

"I have a different story to tell," said 
the Commercial Traveler, "and it is 
certainly less dramatic. My mother 
was an earnest Christian woman, who 
deeply loved the church. She early sur- 
rounded my life with all its sacred min- 
istrations. My child soul drank it all 
in. I was doubtless in an unusual sense 
naturally religious. Needless to say, I 
was not naturally good, and the prob- 
lem of my life was to connect the ideals 
71 



THEOLOGY OF 

and emotions of my religious life with 
my everyday conduct and disposition. 
Sometimes I failed at this; sometimes 
I succeeded. I can't remember when 
I didn't try. When I was a lad of 
eleven I joined the church. I do not 
know as that particular event meant so 
very much to me at the time, but it has 
meant much to me since to be inside. 
I had during my unfolding boyhood 
days several times of positive consecra- 
tion and confession, several periods 
which I might characterize as rapid 
growing times, and all I can say now 
is, as said the apostle, 'By the grace of 
the Lord Jesus Christ I am what I am/ 
and in the words of the fine old song, 
'The Spirit led unerring to the land I 
hold to-day.' " 

The Physician spoke next: "My 
brother says he has a different story to 
tell. I sometimes think I have no story 
at all to tell. I confess I always feel 
embarrassed in a service of this sort. I 
was not brought up a Christian, al- 
72 



A MODERN METHODIST 

though from my earliest life I have 
tried to keep myself morally clean. I 
went to church because my wife was a 
church member and because I believed 
it to be an institution men ought to sup- 
port. I was made a trustee long before 
I joined. Then we had a pastor who 
asked me to become a member of the 
church. He was no mere roll-padder 
and I knew he meant he wanted me to 
publicly confess myself a disciple of 
Jesus Christ. I asked him to give me 
a few days to think it over. I did think 
seriously. I saw that the church was 
really a company of men who were 
banded together to live the kind of a 
life I had honestly been trying to live — 
brave and clean, honest and kind. I 
saw, on the other hand, that in my en- 
deavor to live that kind of a life I had 
come more and more, as the years 
passed by, to depend not on myself, but 
on a certain something near to us all 
which the church folks confessed to be 
the grace of Christ. I could not see, 
73 



THEOLOGY OF 

then, why I should stay away from com- 
munion any longer. The next Sunday 
I joined the church. I don't know as 
I felt or acted very differently after- 
ward, except that more and more I have 
seen the great Helper of my life to be 
personal, real and divine." 

Mary Willard's Way 

"One of the best definitions of what 
conversion really means, I have ever 
seen," responded Professor Paul, "is 
given by Mary Willard, the sister of 
the famous Frances E. Willard, in ex- 
tracts from her girlish journal, given in 
the book Nineteen Beautiful Years. 
She wrote something like this: 'God 
commands me to love him with all my 
heart, and I think I can do it, if I am 
helped/ Of course we all know that 
word 'conversion' is largely a conven- 
tional and ecclesiastical term. Jesus did 
not use it often; when he did it was to 
tell those tough old self-righteous 
Pharisees that they needed to be con- 
74 



A MODERN METHODIST 

verted — or turned around — and made 
like little children. If one cares to 
study words, it is interesting to notice 
that about the only folks that Jesus said 
needed to be converted were the most 
religious people of his time. But the 
favorite expression of J esus was life — 
'eternal' life — using that word 'eternal,' 
as I believe, not so much to describe its 
duration as its spiritual quality. The 
summary of the teaching of Jesus as 
to life and what we call Christian ex- 
perience is very simple and very inter- 
esting. First, we have his rules of daily 
living — homely in their simplicity, hav- 
ing to do largely with how we treat 
those with whom we come in daily con- 
tact, a simple life of practical goodness, 
sincerity, and kindness. Then we are 
told by a hundred beautiful metaphors 
that the source of that life must be the 
Christ. He is the bread we must eat, 
the water we must drink, the vine we 
must spring from if we would live that 
life— if we would develop in our souls 
75 



THEOLOGY OF 

that spiritual quality of life that will 
enable us to live out the Sermon on the 
Mount. And we are to secure his help, 
not by saying long creeds and prayers, 
but by earnestly desiring his friendship 
and seeking it humbly and sincerely. 

"And Paul, who is the great inter- 
preter of the message of the Christ, 
says the same thing. It seems as if 
Paul were careful not to degenerate 
into the use of any mere conventional 
word in describing Christian experi- 
ence. He rarely, if ever, uses our word 
'conversion.' He says of the Ephesians 
that they were made alive in Christ, 
he talks to the Romans about being 
adopted into God's family, and so on. 
The thing he is ever insisting on is the 
same thing Jesus had talked about — 
that spiritual quality of life that comes 
from fellowship with Jesus Christ, that 
bears fruit in practical goodness." 

"I have been wondering while you 
were talking about Christ's conversa- 
tion with Nicodemus. Is there not 
76 



A MODERN METHODIST 



there an insistence on a definite, clear- 
cut crisis like a new birth?" It was the 
District Superintendent who asked this 
question. 

"I think," was the reply, "that the 
emphasis there is rather upon the life 
than the crisis. You know, of course, 
that the better translation for every pur- 
pose is not 'Except a man be born 
again/ but 'Except a man be horn from 
above/ The important thing is not be- 
ing able to say, 'I didn't use to have 
this life; now I have/ although many 
can say this. The important thing is 
living so that it is evident now that 
there is a life from above, divine in its 
source and quality. Of course if a man 
has not this life — if he is living a life 
low, earthly, sensual, and selfish, ac- 
cording to the course of this world, the 
spirit that now worketh in the children 
of disobedience — he needs a crisis, a tre- 
mendous one — and on this Jesus and 
the apostles everlastingly insist; but if 
he turns about and seeks Christ, glori- 
77 



THEOLOGY OF 



ous as that day may be, the important 
thing about then and all the days after 
is not the turning, but the quality of the 
life in his soul." 

"In connection with that chapter," 
said the District Superintendent, "how 
do you interpret the words 'born of 
water and the Spirit'?" 

"Born of Water and the Spirit" 

"You know, of course," replied the 
Professor, "that the Greek word for 
Spirit is the same as that for the wind 
that was then blowing where it listed in 
the treetops. I think Jesus was speak- 
ing in the mystic poetry of the Orient, 
was playing a little on words, too, and 
by the use of the two words, 'water' and 
'wind,' was describing the two leading 
characteristics of the life of the Spirit — 
cleansing and inspiration! And, dear 
brethren," and the Professor beamed 
on the thoughtful assembly, "if we have 
these characteristics of this life, how- 
ever it has come to us — and the methods 
78 



A MODERN METHODIST 



of approach are as various as the hu- 
man family — we may be grateful and 
glad." 

The Pastor looked a little puzzled. 
"But does faith in the blood of Christ 
have no necessary part in it?" 

"Of course we cannot secure this life 
without faith — an intensely moral faith 
too, by the way — that makes us repent 
of our sins and make restitution where 
we can. No man can have Jesus for 
a friend and helper unless he is everlast- 
ingly determined not to be bad — a faith 
also that leads a man by prayer and 
obedience to place his right side up, so 
God can make it run over. As to the 
blood of Christ — no man can believe in 
the Atonement more intensely than I 
do, and you will remember from our 
discussion of it how vital a part I be- 
lieve it plays in the transformation of 
our disposition; but it is not necessary 
for you to know all about aqueducts 
before you drink the water from my 
mountain spring. You could not have 
79 



THEOLOGY OF 

it were it not for the aqueduct — but! 
your part is to drink it." 

"Just one question more, Professor," 
asked the Mill Superintendent. "My 
conversion, which I described, makes 
me glad every time I think of it and 
gives a deep emotional undertone to my 
religious life that is very satisfactory. 
Do those and can those who have not 
had my great emotional crisis have 
this?" 

"I think I will reply in the words of 
the apostle," said the Professor, "and 
as I recite his words see how many of 
them describe experiences that are emo- 
tional and also how naturally he glides 
from what is emotional to what is prac- 
tical and ethical. I think he says it all: 
'The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, 
peace, long-suffering, kindness, good- 
ness, faithfulness, meekness, self-con- 
trol. 5 " 



80 



A MODERN METHODIST 



VIII. ENTIRE SANCTIFICA- 
TION 

It would be impossible, even in these 
days of the passing of the old labels, 
to have a company of Methodists to- 
gether for serious discussion very long 
without some question being asked 
which would necessitate the discussion 
of the subject at the head of this chap- 
ter. As the old song says about the 
Indians, "Their name is on your rivers; 
ye cannot rub them out/' 

At the sixth meeting of the class, at 
the suggestion of one of the laymen 
whom, like the "lost Lenore," we are 
content to leave "nameless here forever- 
more/' the practical meaning of entire 
sanctification was the topic of conversa- 
tion. 

"When I graduated from the theo- 
logical school," said the Pastor, "in my 
graduation address I said it was the 
81 



THEOLOGY OF 

glory of Methodism that she has ever 
taught that a man can get somewhere 
in Christian experience. I remember 
a learned, restless-eyed, middle-aged 
preacher came to me afterward and 
somewhat sarcastically remarked, 
'When you get there you let me 
know/ " 

"It may be, of course," said the Pro- 
fessor, "as is frequently the case, you 
were talking about different things. 
There is a sense in which I suppose we 
shall be everlastingly on the road, and 
it is a splendid fact that Methodists, 
even when their hearts were hottest, 
have been careful to declare that by the 
blessing of entire sanctification they do 
not mean the end of development, but 
simply a perfect growing condition. I 
think, however, if you have quoted your- 
self correctly you properly estimated 
Methodism's glory. Only I would re- 
member also the best definition of Meth- 
odism, 'Christianity in earnest,' and 
broaden out a little. If an experience 
82 



A MODERN METHODIST 

is peculiarly Methodist, it is not of any 
value except to the curio hunter. If it 
is as wide as Christianity, it is doubtless 
as high as heaven in its origin. I say, 
therefore, that it is the glory of Chris- 
tianity that it has ever taught that a 
man can get somewhere in moral char- 
acter and spiritual power." 

"What is it to be entirely sanctified?" 
asked the Mill Superintendent, in his 
usual direct fashion. 

"I think you will see from all my 
discussions of the Christian life," re- 
plied the Professor, "that the more in- 
tensely personal it is the more genuinely 
vital it becomes. We have seen that the 
power of the Atonement is that by fel- 
lowship with the personal Christ we ap- 
propriate the benefits of great experi- 
ences. He endured vicariously for us. 
The blood of Christ does not chemically 
cleanse us. The constant heart beat 
against ours of the self-sacrificing 
Christ does. You will remember also 
our discussion of the selfishness of hu- 
83 



THEOLOGY OF 

man nature. My thought of entire 
sanctification is that it is such a con- 
stant fellowship with Christ as to have 
daily victory over all the selfish ten- 
dencies of human nature — and that is 
certainly the great purpose of our great 
salvation." 

"Do you believe in eradication or 
suppression?" asked the District Super- 
intendent. 

"I don't know as I know enough 
about human nature to believe in either. 
I mean just as some people make me 
good clear through to have them around, 
so the abiding presence of the Christ 
works with me." 

"Do you believe in the second bless- 
ing?" asked the Mill Superintendent. 

The Second Blessing 

"I believe that most men are apt to 
advance by a series of crises toward 
God. Even our intellectual life has its 
rapid growing times. I can recall a few 
weeks in my early ministry that changed 
84* 



A MODERN METHODIST 

my whole intellectual vision and theo- 
logical outlook. I suppose the experi- 
ence of those weeks was not really a 
sudden creation any more than the sud- 
den bloom of the apple orchard is the 
work of a single night. There was a 
long period of preparation of root and 
limb and leaf and bud. It is just the 
same way in our spiritual life. You 
remember that John Wesley, in his 
famous "Plain Account,' with a psy- 
chology that is crude, yet struck an 
eternal note because he kept so close 
to actual experience. He said, in effect, 
'I cannot tell how God might work, but 
this is the way I have seen him do it,' 
and then tells how, after a man has 
become a Christian (I strip his words 
of their ancient theological garb), he 
goes on steadily growing for some time, 
struggling and singing, and then there 
comes to him a vision of what he may be 
if he has a constant sense of the abiding 
presence of Christ. For this he prays 
and this he obtains. That is, I take it, 
85 



THEOLOGY OF 

what you mean by the second blessing. 
In that sense I believe in it — in the 
Wesley an sense that I have seen God 
frequently work that way. Indeed, I 
may go farther and confess to you I 
have had some experience along that 
line myself, but always the important 
thing is not how the vision, the prayer, 
and the answer come, but whether now 
the love and the presence of the vicari- 
ous Christ so stay with a body as to 
constantly shame out his selfishness." 

"Is entire sanctification the same 
thing as the baptism with the Holy 
Spirit?" asked the Physician. 

Some Earnest Inquiries 

"You will remember our little talk 
about the Spirit. His work is to re- 
mind us constantly of Christ. When 
we are filled with a sense of the love and 
presence in our lives of the Christ, we 
may safely conclude, to use an old- 
fashioned phrase, that the Holy Spirit 
is the instrument — the baptism with the 
86 



A MODERN METHODIST 

Spirit, if you please. In all these words 
we are struggling with bungling theo- 
logical phrases and lifeless human 
words to describe the indescribable life 
of God/ 5 

"I confess," said the Physician, "I 
have never been very much interested 
in this subject, anyway. As I take it, 
if a man lives a sincere, honest, Chris- 
tian life, he will land in heaven. I guess 
that is all I can attend to, with all my 
business." 

The Professor smiled, but said: "I 
like to remember the words in the 
prayer of Jesus, Tor their sakes I 
sanctify myself/ If a body is inter- 
ested in this or any blessing, just as the 
small boy wants to sample the different 
drinks at a soda fountain — and some 
are (I have seen them come glibly for- 
ward at an altar call, to just see how 
a new blessing would feel) — he is an 
unhealthy and one-sided Christian; but 
if for the sake of others, like the Christ, 
for the sake of giving the wistful, watch- 
87 



THEOLOGY OF 

ful world a shining sample of how 
radiant Christ can make life, we seek 
the deepest fellowship with him, we are 
indeed keeping company with Him who 
said, Tor their sakes I sanctify my- 
self.' " 

"What I want to know," said the 
Commercial Traveler, "is what we fel- 
lows ought to do about it. I confess my 
short-comings and long-stayings. How 
am I going to make the apple orchard 
in my soul blossom?" 

"I suppose," said the Professor, "that 
blossoms cannot be forced, but the right 
climate does help. I remember that 
in Paul's prayer for the Ephesians that 
'Christ may dwell in their hearts by 
faith/ which is the very thing I am talk- 
ing about, and I am frank to say seems 
to me more electric with life than say- 
ing the 'blessing of sanctification,' there 
was considerable fixing up of the dwell- 
ing. It had to be rooted and grounded 
in love and strengthened with might by 
the Spirit in the inner man to be able 
88 



A MODERN METHODIST 

to accommodate the constant tenant* 
This is the case where I think probably 
the old challenge of the prophet, 'Draw 
nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to 
you/ is timely. If you are prayerfully 
and trustfully and obediently eager for 
the grounding and the strengthening, I 
do not believe God will disappoint you. 
There is, I think, a tremendous moral 
back action to any forward step in the 
way of blessing — and seeking the higher 
levels of Christian life and love will 
call for a fairly thorough review of your 
whole attitude toward God and the 
ideals of his gospel. He is not going 
to make you any better than you want 
to be." 



89 



THEOLOGY OF 



IX. PRAYER 

It was the Monday after the Sunday 
designated by the President as a day 
of prayer for our country. The 
thoughts of the men present turned 
naturally to the subject of prayer, and 
the Commercial Traveler broke out 
with the question, "Professor Paul, 
what good does it do to pray, anyway? 
Is it possible for us to pray in such a 
way that we get everything we ask?" 

"You have asked two questions in 
a rapid-fire fashion, as if they belonged 
together, when as a matter of fact one 
belongs in life's kindergarten, and I 
guess we won't be able to fully answer 
the other until we get into the post- 
graduate course," replied the Professor. 

"Start us in the kindergarten, Pro- 
fessor," said the Physician. "That is 
where I feel that I belong in this pray- 
ing business." 

90 



A MODERN METHODIST 



A Kindergarten on Prayer 

"The kindergarten question is the 
one about whether we may pray so as 
to get everything we ask. I like to 
remember that Jesus grounded his 
whole doctrine of prayer on the great 
fact of the Fatherhood of God. He 
said, c If ye then, being evil, know how 
to give good gifts unto your children: 
how much more shall your Father which 
is in heaven give good things to those 
that ask him? 5 Then he goes on to say 
— or I guess he has said it before — if 
a son asks bread his father will not give 
him a stone, nor if he asks fish, a ser- 
pent. It ought also to be evident that 
if he asks for a serpent, he will not give 
him one. I remember reading of a 
woman who was lying in a hammock 
reading a novel when her little child be- 
gan to cry. Without looking up, some- 
what impatiently she told the nurse 
maid to give the child what he wanted. 
The maid protested, but the mother in- 
91 



THEOLOGY OF 

sisted. Thereupon the cries became a 
shriek, and the nurse grimly remarked, 
'He has it, mum; it's a hornet.' Now, 
I reckon I could find in several of my 
old diaries an account of some hornets 
I have prayed for, and to-day I thank 
God those prayers were not answered. 

"I think it is Harriet Beecher Stowe 
who says that all progress has been in 
spite of the earnest prayer of some pure 
souls who have prayed against it. Of 
course we know that Tories prayed 
against Washington, that pure South- 
ern mothers prayed against Lincoln — 
you remember the pleasant little theo- 
logical fiction that God had to take 
Stonewall Jackson out of the world be- 
cause he could never let the cause of 
the Union triumph with that man 
storming heaven with his prayer. I do 
not doubt that there are sincere Ger- 
mans to-day praying for the final vic- 
tory of the Kaiser. You see," and the 
Professor looked around and smiled, 
"that to run the prayer department of 
92 



A MODERN METHODIST 

this universe is no small task— but all 
the prayers, whether a child praying 
for a toy, or the sincere soul travail of 
a nation on its knees, must be consid- 
ered up in heaven from the standpoint 
of holy Fatherhood. 

4 'That explains also why some of our 
prayers are not speedily answered. I 
remember once when I was in the 
academy, as a student, I got behind in 
my Latin on account of sickness. Now, 
I knew that the teacher had a teacher's 
edition, sort of a proper pedagogical 
pony with the translation under each 
line. It occurred to me if I borrowed 
that I could catch up with the class, so 
I asked the teacher if I might take it, 
telling her the reason. She blushed at 
my knowledge of her possession and re- 
fused my request, but showed me in- 
stead a slow, plodding way of making 
up my work. I did not think so then, 
but now I know she was a good teacher. 
She knew the only benefit that could 
come from studying Latin was from 
93 



THEOLOGY OF 

studying Latin, that it was only what 
it did for me that makes it worth while 
at all. 

"And because God is a good Father, 
he does not speedily answer the prayers 
of his elect who cry unto him day and 
night. He knows that the development 
of our character as sons of God is more 
important than the immediate granting 
of our requests." 

"Yet/' interrupted the Pastor, "our 
brother's question was whether it is not 
possible to pray in such a way that we 
get everything we ask. If we truly say 
with our hearts the conditional clause, 
'If it be thy will/ may not his question 
be answered in the affirmative?" 

"I suppose there might be some ques- 
tion as to whether, under these circum- 
stances, a man could be said to really 
get what he was really praying for — 
although, of course, there are both a 
grammatical and a theological sense in 
which you are right, and I am reminded 
of the lines of Whittier : 
94 



A MODERN METHODIST 



u 'And so sometimes I think our prayers 
Might well be merged in one, 
And nest and perch and hearth and church 
Repeat, "Thy will be done." ' 

"Putting it that way," exclaimed the 
Commercial Traveler, "what's the use 
of praying at all? One of the finest 
old men I ever knew said he didn't. He 
said the Lord knew what he needed, 
anyway, and gave it to him before he 
asked, so he guessed he wouldn't bother 
him or take any of his time by talking 
to him;' 

"But we are commanded to pray," 
said the Pastor. 

"Not only by our Bible, but by our 
hearts," remarked the Mill Superin- 
tendent, "We almost can't help it." 

"Both of these commands must have 
some reason behind them," replied Pro- 
fessor Paul, "and here again I think we 
find the answer in that great fact on 
which Jesus grounded all his talk about 
prayer — the Fatherhood of God. If 
God is just a mill superintendent, he 
95 



THEOLOGY OF 



may want to run things without any 
suggestion from his employees, but if 
he is a Father, he is heart-hungry for 
fellowship with his children." 

"If a man is a mill superintendent, 
he gets suggestions from his employees 
in these days whether he wants them 
or not/' replied the Mill Superintend- 
ent himself, "and if they come from the 
right sort, he is a better superintendent 
because of it." 

"And I am a better teacher if I get 
suggestions from my students," said the 
Professor. "I don't mean that I follow 
them; I usually don't, but it is good 
for a teacher to get his student's view- 
point. It promotes fellowship. Our 
brother, the Pastor, is a better minister 
if his people talk with him — and so on. 
And why should not this same fellow- 
ship idea apply to our Father, God? 
I don't mean that he needs to have us 
give him points, but that since it is his 
plan that we shall be workers together 
with him in bringing in his kingdom, it 
96 



A MODERN METHODIST 



shall be best for all of us to be bound 
together by ties of fellowship that only 
prayer can bring." 

Prayer and Omniscience 

"One thing you seem to be forget- 
ting, Professor/ 5 said the Physician, 
"and it was suggested by what was said 
about that old man who didn't pray be- 
cause the Lord knew beforehand all 
about him. If God is omniscient — that 
is, really so, you know — then he can 
have fellowship with us without pray- 
ing. He knows the thoughts of our 
hearts." 

"I was hoping you would ask that 
question, Doctor/' was the reply, "be- 
cause that will best bring out two things 
I wanted to say, and they really are in 
answer to the question that I said at the 
start we could really not answer fully 
until we take life's postgraduate course. 
The first is that the law of expression 
is the law of life. I mean that I doubt 
if we really think a thing until we say 
9T 



THEOLOGY OF 

it or pray it. I mean that saying it or 
praying it drives it into our soul and 
makes it part of us as it was not before. 
And the other is that you have been 
thinking all the time that the supreme 
purpose of prayer is not that our 
Father, God, may know us, but that we 
may know him. By praying, by find- 
ing out in praying that Tennyson was 
right when he said, 

" 6 ... Spirit with spirit can meet — 

Closer is He than breathing, and 
nearer than hands or feet,' 

you really get acquainted with God, 
and the moral and spiritual reaction of 
such an acquaintance in your life gets 
your soul in such shape that if your 
prayer is a worth-while one — and the 
other kind lops off naturally in such a 
fellowship — you are able to receive its 
answer. That, as I understand it, is 
the real philosophy of prayer and 
answers our question, 'What good does 
it do to pray?' " 

98 



A MODERN METHODIST 

"Only partly," insisted the Physi- 
cian. "That answers, I am very frank 
to say, the query as to why I should 
pray for myself. This whole discussion 
started from the fact that yesterday we 
all prayed for our country. We have 
not yet touched the question as to why 
we should pray for others, and yet, as 
I understand it, as we advance in Chris- 
tian living, more and more of our pray- 
ing is that sort. Didn't somebody say, 

" 'Lord, help me to live from day to day 
In such a self-forgetful way 
That even when I kneel to pray 
My prayer shall be for others'? 

"You know, I said at the beginning 
one of our questions could not be fully 
answered. This is not to be wondered 
at when we remember how many of the 
forces of life, material as well as spirit- 
ual, are still wrapped in mystery. I 
was reading the other day that Mark 
Twain said he never wrote anything 
original, that nobody ever did. He 
99 



THEOLOGY OF 

seemed to think that ideas are floating 
around in the atmosphere, as it were; 
that when we write we simply reach out 
our hand and draw into the belfry of 
our brains some carrier-pigeon that 
somebody else sent out with a message 
tied to its leg and write down the mes- 
sage in our own words — that is all! 
You will remember how poor Helen 
Keller was accused of plagiarism be- 
cause she wrote almost the same words 
that had been printed before. 

"It is interesting to notice in the 
study of literary history that whenever 
we have one poet we usually have a 
group of them. The same in philosophy 
and oratory and science. It seems as 
if a man who is truly intellectual gen- 
erates a certain intellectual power, as 
if a wave of influence went from him 
to others. 

"We don't know enough about 
telepathy yet to ground our doctrine of 
intercessory prayer on it. In fact, we 
know more about prayer. But why 
100 



A MODERN METHODIST 



may not a truly praying man generate 
a social and moral power that God can 
use and does use in the world of folks? 
I believe for me to pray for my country 
is worth while because I am part of it. 
I believe for me to pray for my neigh- 
bor is worth while because I am part of 
him too. I mean that he and I are some- 
how united in a subtle, spiritual way, 
and the winds of God will carry pollen 
from the blossoms in my soul to the 
blossoms in his. There is no doubt 
about it that this kind of prayer is one 
of God's choicest ways of bringing in 
his kingdom. I remember that Pro- 
fessor Coe once said, 'No man can 
really pray and leave the universe the 
way it was before.' " 

"I suggest that before we go," said 
the Mill Superintendent, "we may 
kneel and pray together for our coun- 
try." 

There was a reverent and ready re- 
sponse, and who can doubt that when 
the final records are written the angel 
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THEOLOGY OF 

who keeps the books will underscore it 
with gold as one of the forces that kept 
the ship of state from foundering on the 
bleak gale that was blowing that night? 



102 



A MODERN METHODIST 



X. WHAT IS THE TEACHING 
OF JESUS ABOUT HELL? 

"I was over at the meetings in the 
tabernacle the other night," said the 
Mill Superintendent, as the little group 
of men gathered for their Monday meet- 
ing in Professor Paul's cozy study, "and 
1 heard the evangelist. He seems to be 
doing good work, and I think we ought 
to help him. One thing that I noticed 
— and that is why I speak of it here — 
was his frequent use of the word 'hell/ 
In fact, it seemed to me he was a little 
too free in damning people, although I 
had to acknowledge it seemed to me 
most of the time he was correctly dis- 
posing of the appropriate crowd; but 
another thing that impressed me was 
that there was no profound impression 
made by his anathemas. The people 
seemed neither frightened nor saddened. 
In fact, some of them, I could see, en- 
103 



THEOLOGY OF 

joyed it all very much and all seemed 
to accept it simply as fine specimens of 
emphatic and lurid rhetoric. That led 
me to wondering as to what we really 
believe about hell, and, what is more 
important still, what, so far as we can 
ascertain, is the truth, as taught in the 
Bible." 

"I venture to suggest a narrower 
field of discussion than that," replied 
Professor Paul. "Suppose we make 
the subject of our study to-night, 
'What is the teaching of Jesus about 
hell?' That will be less diffuse and 
more definite and will accomplish all 
that a more elaborate study of the Bible, 
as a whole, would do, which, of course, 
would take more than one evening. On 
this subject I think we can let Jesus 
speak the last word." 

"On every subject," interrupted the 
Pastor. 

The Last Word 

"I am not so sure of that," was the 
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A MODERN METHODIST 

thoughtful reply. "Did Jesus not say 
that there were some things his disciples 
could not bear while he was with them? 
The doctrine of the Atonement, the 
coming of the Holy Spirit and some 
of the most precious truths of Christian 
experience could not be fully told until 
after Calvary and Pentecost. Here we 
need the teaching of the Acts and 
Epistles to supplement the sayings of 
our Lord. Also for some doctrines— 
I think especially the doctrines of the 
coming of the Kingdom — we need the 
message of the unfolding scroll of his- 
tory in which the Spirit of Truth has 
been at work. You remember that 
Lowell says : 

u 'Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, 

And not on paper leaves, nor leaves of 
stone. 

Each age, each kindred adds a verse 
to it — 

Texts of hope, or despair, of joy or 
moan. 

While swings the sea, while mists the 
mountains shroud, 
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THEOLOGY OF 



While thunder surges burst on cliffs of 
cloud, 

Still at the prophets' feet the nations 
sit. 5 

"But when it comes to truths that 
have to do with the eternal world, with 
heaven or with hell, I seriously question 
if we have received any additional light 
since Jesus taught by Galilee. We may 
find in Christian biography and possi- 
bly in science, as time goes on, some 
confirmation of the same. But our 
present need, as it seems to me, is to 
Orientalize ourselves, put ourselves, as 
far as possible, in the land and the time 
when Jesus spoke, find out what his 
word pictures meant to the people of 
that time, and consequently what they 
should mean to us." 

"Hades" 

"That is what I want to know," ex- 
claimed the Commercial Traveler. 
"While you have been speaking, I have 
been looking in my Testament, and I 
106 



A MODERN METHODIST 

find this text: 'Whosoever is angry 
with his brother without a cause shall 
be in danger of the judgment; whoso- 
ever shall call his brother, Raca shall 
be in danger of the council; whosoever 
shall say 'Thou fool/ shall be in danger 
of hell fire/ " 

"There are two words that are trans- 
lated 'hell' in the Authorized Version 
of the New Testament," said the Pro- 
fessor. "One is 'hades,' and simply 
means the spirit world, the land where 
are those that we call dead. When 
Peter was preaching about Jesus at 
Pentecost, he quoted a psalm about not 
leaving his soul in hell. In that case he 
used the word 'hades/ and simply means 
that Jesus, our conquering Christ, did 
not stay dead. That was also the 
thought of the old line of the creed, 'He 
descended into hell.' Jesus used that 
word in the parable of the rich man and 
Lazarus. He says: 'In hades he lifted 
up his eyes, being in torment.' That 
does not mean that hades necessarily 
107 



THEOLOGY OF 

implied 'torment,' for if he had hap- 
pened to describe the place where Laza- 
rus was in Abraham's bosom he would 
also have called it Hades. I do not 
think we can build a doctrine of either 
heaven or hell on that parable. That 
was a parable told, not to give informa- 
tion about the unseen world, but to 
teach those money-loving Jews that 
God heard the cry of the poor and that 
the selfish rich who heard not Moses 
and the prophets and the poor beggar 
would reverse positions in 'the land of 
things as they are.' To emphasize the 
truth Jesus used the poetic imagery of 
a heaven with Abraham in charge, and 
a hell in sight of it with which the peo- 
ple of that time were familiar, just as 
he had in the parable before used the 
rather questionable proceeding of the 
unjust steward to emphasize his lesson 
of practical shrewdness." 

"Gehenna" 

"The other word that is used for 'hell' 

108 



A MODERN METHODIST 

— and the usual word of Jesus — is 'ge- 
henna.' As I hinted at the start, to un- 
derstand this we need to Orientalize 
ourselves, to go back to the land and the 
time when Jesus was teaching. There 
was outside the city of Jerusalem a val- 
ley known as Gehenna, of the valley of 
the sons of Hinnim. It was here that 
wicked King Manasseh had practiced 
his cruel idolatrous orgies and com- 
pelled his sons to go through the fire. 
Later a king with the zeal of reform 
upon him had, as the record tersely 
says, 'defiled it.' It became the place 
where the dead bodies of animals and 
criminals were thrown, and later all 
kinds of refuse, It was the garbage 
dump of Jerusalem. Fires, of course, 
were kept burning to keep conditions 
at all sanitary. No doubt this place 
was used in the time of Jesus as a type 
of moral ruin. Whether it was or not, 
Jesus so uses it — and the summary of 
his teaching is this : Don't live the hind 
of a life so that your final end will be 
109 



THEOLOGY OF 

in the moral refuse heap of the uni- 
verse. That, as I understand it, is the 
teaching of Jesus about hell." 

His Emphasis 

"What about the question of the 
eternity of the punishment?" asked the 
Pastor. 

"Time is such a relative thing," was 
the thoughtful reply. "On the one 
hand, some moments in lif e seem almost 
age long. On the other hand, a man 
can get used to things. If a man could 
get used to State's prison in time, he 
might get used to hell in eternity. You 
understand, of course, that is rather 
melancholy comfort. But I do not be- 
lieve that the emphasis of the teaching 
of Jesus is at all upon the matter of 
duration, which is, as I have said, a 
purely relative thing. His emphasis 
is on the finality of moral ruin. I have 
never felt that the burden of the mes- 
sage of Jesus was that unless you are 
good a little while here you will suffer 
110 



A MODERN METHODIST 

like an eternal headache or heartache 
forever. I remember I heard a good 
woman say in prayer meeting that she 
approved of 'unsaved people' going to 
the theater and having all the good 
times they could here, because they 
would not have any hereafter. No! 
here is what Jesus taught: There is 
what you may be, a son of God, like 
him in the great purpose of your life 
and the spirit of your soul, and there is 
what you are, a heap of moral rotten- 
ness, fit only for the refuse pile of the 
valley of Gehenna, 'where the worm 
dieth not and the fire is not quenched.' 

"Pastor, reach over there and pass 
me my Lowell from that book shelf, 
please." This done, he opened it and 
said, "Here, men, listen to this. The 
name of the poem is 'Extreme Unction/ 
and here is what it says : 

" 'Upon the hour when I was born 

God said, "Another man shall be," 
And the great Maker did not scorn 
Out of Himself to fashion me; 
111 



THEOLOGY OF 



He sunned me with His ripening looks 
And heaven's rich instincts in me grew, 

As effortless as woodland nooks 

Send violets up and paint them blue. 

'Yes, I who now with angry tears 
Am exiled back to brutish clod 
Have borne unquenched for fourscore 

years 

A spark of the eternal God; 
And to what end? How yield I back 

The trust for such high uses given? 
Heaven's light hath but revealed a track 

Whereby to crawl away from heav- 
en. • . • 

6 ... I flung away 

Those keys that might have open set 
The golden sluices of the day, 

But clutch the keys of darkness yet; 
I hear the reapers singing go 

Into God's harvest; I that might 
With them have chosen, here below 

Grope shuddering at the gates of night. 

'O glorious Youth, that once wast mine ! 

O high ideal ! all in vain 
Ye enter at this ruined shrine 

Whence worship ne'er shall rise again. 
112 



A MODERN METHODIST 



The bat and owl inhabit here, 

The snake nests in the altar stone, 

The sacred vessels molder near, 
The image of the God is gone. 9 

"That poem has caught in a remark- 
able degree the emphasis of the teach- 
ing of Jesus about hell, and when we 
go beyond that much, to borrow the ex- 
pressive phrase of an old Negro 
preacher, we are trying to 'unscrew the 
inscrutable/ and weaken our message." 

"Who?" "You!" 

After a thoughtful pause, the Com- 
mercial Traveler asked, "Professor 
Paul, who are going to hell?" 

"I am glad you asked that question, 
because we need to think of it," said the 
Professor. "Because when we think 
of hell as moral ruin, we are apt to think 
of the coarser sins and forget those 
subtle spiritual qualities which when 
rubbed off the soul, like the down from 
the wings of a butterfly, cripple its fly- 
ing capacities forever. The answer of 
113 



THEOLOGY OF 



Jesus to your question is, I say it 
solemnly, 'Look out or you'll go there 
yourself V 

"Take the text you read to us at the 
start, for instance: 'Whosoever is angry 
with his brother without a cause is in 
danger of judgment. 5 We hot-tem- 
pered fellows who have been hauled out 
to the bar of our conscience at night know 
what that means. 'Whosoever shall call 
his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of 
the council,' and you know that anybody 
who refuses to square his business ideals 
by the doctrine of the worthwhileness of 
human life is increasingly in danger of 
the council of aroused people in this 
world, to say nothing of the next. 
'Whosoever says, Thou fool, shall be in 
danger of hell fire/ A fool is one in- 
capable of reason or religion. The mes- 
sage is that if you are doing nothing for 
your brother's soul, you are in danger of 
going to hell — not he is, as the old-time 
evangelists have sometimes said to us — 
but Jesus says you are." 

114 



A MODERN METHODIST 

"I think," remarked the Mill Super 
intendent, "we will need to pray, 

" 'Help me to watch and pray, 
And on thyself rely, 
Assured if I my trust betray, 
I shall forever die. 5 99 



115 



THEOLOGY OF 



XI. WHAT DO WE KNOW 
ABOUT HEAVEN? 

There was a great cloud of sorrow 
over the Monday meeting at the Pro- 
fessor's home. The Commercial Trav- 
eler, who had been the life of the class, 
at whose suggestion, indeed, the class 
had been formed, had, during the last 
week, suddenly stepped out into the 
eternities. His cheery greeting, his 
frank, manly questions and answers, 
the outshining of his sturdy soul would 
never again add their warm human at- 
mosphere to their weekly gatherings. 
The men felt as did the poet when he 
said, "The soul of the summer had 
slipped away." 

The fire in the open grate was burn- 
ing brightly. Contrary to the usual 
custom, the Professor's wife brought in 
cups of steaming chocolate and plates 
116 



A MODERN METHODIST 

of dainty wafers. The men realized 
that she was led by the same spirit that 
used to make mother have extra deli- 
cious dessert when they first met some 
of life's disappointments in childhood's 
happy days, and were dumbly grateful. 

The Only Question 

The Commercial Traveler was so apt 
to be the one to open the discussions of 
the evening that there was naturally a 
long pause after the usual greetings. 
Finally the Mill Superintendent spoke, 
his voice trembling a little. "It's no 
use, Professor; there is only one ques- 
tion we want to talk about now — and 
I don't know as we can say much on 
that: What do we know about heaven? 
I don't mean its geography and that 
sort of thing, but do we absolutely know 
there is such a place and that good folks 
go there — or is it merely a dream born 
of an intense desire?" 

"Yes," said the Physician, "I find 
even among good people a lack of cer- 
117 



THEOLOGY OF 



tainty about it. Their creed seems 
to be: 

" 'We came into life naked and bare. 

We go through life with trouble and care. 
We go from life nobody knows where. 
If we live well here, 'twill be well with us 
there,' 

(probably) — some even add 'possibly' 
instead!" 

"This is a good time to discuss the 
subject," replied Professor Paul, "be- 
cause the tragedy that has entered our 
little circle adds much human interest 
to it, although it occurs to me that al- 
ways there is somebody who must be 
especially interested. You remember 
that our whole discussion of the things 
of the Spirit is based on a profound 
belief that God is our heavenly Father 
and we are his children. If that is true, 
the very longing for the life immortal 
is a fairly safe guarantee of its cer- 
tainty. As Celia Thaxter said of the 
song of the sparrow, 'God never meant 
that song to mock us.' " 
118 



A MODERN METHODIST 

"I can see," replied the Mill Super- 
intendent, thoughtfully, "that if what 
we have been saying during these happy 
weeks is correct, the next chapter to 
it all must be heaven, but an experience 
like this 'strains my cable' a little. I 
am kind of wondering if my anchor will 
hold. And I want to ask you two ques- 
tions, Professor. The first one is this: 
Is there any proof positive and clear of 
the life immortal outside of the realm 
of religious faith? Do we find any- 
where else, in science, for instance, any- 
thing that will make us know about life 
beyond death?" 

"Of course you must remember," said 
Professor Paul, "that I am a professor 
of theology and perhaps I am not quali- 
fied to answer that question. I am 
aware, of course, of the recent investiga- 
tion of Sir Oliver Lodge and others, but 
I think that the most science can give 
us up to date is what poetry has given 
us from the time poets have first 
dreamed and sung — that is what 
119 



THEOLOGY OF 

Wordsworth calls 'Intimations of Im- 
mortality/ and some of the intimations 
are rather faint. In a loss like that 
which has come to our circle I do not 
think we get much comfort from 
science or anywhere else outside of the 
Christian faith!" 

That Man Paul 

"My other question is this," con- 
tinued the Mill Superintendent: "Is 
the kind of certainty we get in the Chris- 
tian religion a real practical certainty 
that will hold in the everyday world, or 
is it a hothouse, prayer-meeting affair? 
Can we men of the world among men 
of the world think and speak of the life 
beyond not merely as a pleasing possi- 
bility or a plausible probability, but as 
a real thing concerning which we 
know?" 

"I remember," remarked the Pastor, 
"that the greatest Christian we know 
much about said when speaking of the 
heavenly life, 'We know.' " 
120 



A MODERN METHODIST 

"And he was no guesser nor dreamer, 
either, that man Paul," exclaimed the 
District Superintendent. "If he knew, 
he knew. Either he got on a higher 
hilltop than the rest of us and so could 
see farther, in which case I believe I 
would accept his testimony as quickly 
as that of any scientist I know about, 
or else we too may find his same glad 
certainty." 

"There are," continued the Professor, 
"two distinct kinds of certainty. One 
is the mathematical certainty of the 
scientist and the logician, the Q. E. D. 
kind. Probably that is the kind of 
certainty people have in mind when 
they want us to prove the assertions of 
the Christian religion about the life be- 
yond. And I would not say it cannot 
be done. At least we can affirm that it 
is a logical conclusion. If we have an 
arc, we can complete the circle, and if 
God's promises all verify themselves 
when conditions are met in human life 
here, it is certainly good mathematics 
121 



THEOLOGY OF 

to 'reckon that the sufferings of this 
present life are not worthy to be com- 
pared with the glory to be revealed/ 
But I sometimes think we have wasted 
too much time and thought figuring for 
that kind of a certainty. The most that 
can give us is a logical conclusion on 
paper, with the ever-haunting fear that 
there may be, after all, some flaw in 
our logic, some error in our figuring. 
The teachings of Jesus and the apostles 
give no space nor attention to that kind 
of a quest for assurance. It is at its 
best a roundabout road, with many 
shadows. 

The Higher Certainty 

"The other kind of certainty — and 
life is full of it — it is not confined to 
religion — is the practical certainty of 
everyday life that does not need to be 
figured out and demonstrated. That is 
really the higher kind of certainty. 'My 
heart leaps up whene'er I see a rainbow 
in the sky/ is a much more positive 
122 



A MODERN METHODIST 

statement than 'I can give five reasons 
why I conclude that I see a rainbow.' 
The little girl who broke up the learned 
discussions of the scientists as to what 
a certain white powder could be by put- 
ting her moist finger in it and then put- 
ting said finger into her mouth and ex- 
claiming, 'I know; it is sugar; just taste 
it,' was the surest one of the company. 
If it takes an argument to prove that a 
certain literary attempt is poetry, or 
that a certain sound is music, there is 
something the matter with the author, 
or the reader, with the performer or the 
audience. The child of a true home, 
drinking in its love as a flower drinks 
in the sunshine, does not need to have 
his father or mother prove their love. 
He experiences daily. 

"I have sometimes listened to the 
earnest statement of my own little lad 
in convincing the neighbors' children of 
the truth of a certain statement. He 
will burst out with 'I know it's so, be- 
cause my father says so !' It makes me 
123 



THEOLOGY OF 

feel rather humble when I think of the 
time of disillusionment when he dis- 
covers I do not know it all. But if I 
were as great as my little boy thinks 
I am, there could be no greater cer- 
tainty than that — the promise of a 
father who never fails! 

"I know of no finer certainty in life 
than this — and if the sense of the love 
and presence of our Father in our lives 
is made real to us through Jesus Christ 
our Lord, his promise of the final home 
in his Word and in our hearts becomes 
like the rainbow we see in the sky or the 
lovelight in our mother's face, the high- 
est kind of knowledge. The crude old 
hymn tells it all: 

" 'This I do find: 

We two are so joined 
He will not stay in glory 
And leave me behind.' * 

"Then," said the Physician, "if we 
are sure of God and Christ, we are sure 
of heaven. And we are sure of them 
124 



A MODERN METHODIST 

in the same way we are of any other 
friends with whom we have daily ex- 
perience." 

"That is it," said Professor Paul "I 
suppose that many people would like 
a certainty about the future lif e without 
a religious experience. In fact, many 
try to find it — but God knows that we 
need to find our Father before we find 
our home. He put first things first." 



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